Turning 30

In just over a year, I will be turning 30. When I realized this a few weeks ago, I almost started hyperventilating. Seriously, I had to calm myself down. NOT 30!!!!!! Thirty is not the new twenty. Thirty is not when your life finally begins. Thirty is…Thirty is OLD! Thirty is when you stop having kids (at least in my family 🙂 and I haven’t even started! Thirty is when you own a home (yeah, not there yet). Thirty is when you know who you are, what the heck you are doing, stop saying “When I grow up, I want to be…”. Thirty is so final. It means you are no longer in your twenties. It means, “It’s about time you stop still thinking you are in 8th grade forever”. Thirty is when you get serious, responsible, and are at least 5’5″ (I think I need to get over this height issue). Thirty is when you know how to manage all your money and are no longer in debt. Thirty is when you have memorized half the Bible and have stopped putting red clothing in with the whites. Thirty is when you start eating healthy if you want to make it to Forty. Oh no! FORTY IS COMING. Thirty means forty is coming!

I never could imagine being 30. I don’t know how I got here. I suppose it’s because I just kept breathing and waking up every morning. For almost 30 years, I have been waking up every morning. That’s a lot of waking up and now that I am almost 30, it’s time to really wake up, reevaluate goals, visions, relationships, priorities, standards. It’s time to clean the dishes the moment you dirty them. It’s time to actually drink water and eat vegetables.

Thirty is when your metabolism starts slowing down. I am not trying to be a downer on this issue but if I don’t have this realization now that metabolism will eventually slow down, then I will eat, eat, eat and wake up wondering, not only how I got so old, but so unhealthy!

Some people don’t make it to 30. Some people die young. It should be an honor to be turning 30. And it is. I’ve made it where millions of others have never been, I have made it. Hooray.

The unfortunate thing about having a revelation at 28 that you are about to turn 29 and the next number is 30 is that all year 29, I am going to be thinking about 30.

I have heard many times from people that they loved their 30s way more than their 20s. I also keep getting told by my patients, “Don’t get old. It sucks”. Yeah, well, it sucks if you have been using heroin for 30 years. Yeah, it sucks if you haven’t taken care of yourself. Yeah, it sucks if you think there is no after life. Yeah, it sucks if you have been smoking your whole life. It would suck if you have burnt all your bridges with your family and friends and have absolutely no one to talk to.

Getting older is not the end of the world. Getting older is a privilege. God says long life is for those who have honored their parents. Getting older means I have more days to praise the Lord. I can’t praise God from the grave but I can praise Him in my thirties, my forties, my fifties, my sixties, my seventies, my eighties, my nineties and for all eternity.

I really have no regrets from my twenties (Maybe I just have a bad memory). Sure, it would have been nice to be less insecure at 20 than I am now but you know what, I have done alright. I have used what gifts God has given me and if I was to give myself a report card for this decade, I would say B+. Probably watched too many movies this decade. Probably spent way too much time thinking about boys. I know I spent plenty of time being selfish and looking out for #1. Probably wasted too much time wishing I was somewhere else, looked like someone else, etc. But when I think about the situations I have been in that have challenged me/grown me, the people I have touched, small groups I have been apart of/led, friends I have called at just the right moment, speaking grace to people, you know, I’m all right. All my sister’s kids have been birthed while I was in my twenties. I went to nursing school while in my twenties. I went to cooking school, sky diving, had my first date;), went to Africa, went to too many funerals, way more weddings, all in my twenties. And I could make this post a lot longer if I kept thinking about it.

But the bottom line is: God is faithful. He was faithful in my twenties, and since He doesn’t change, I know He will be faithful in my thirties.